


self-portrait against red wallpaper

by technicallyproficient



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: F/M, pretentious title and quote from the always lovely Richard Siken!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:15:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21982771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/technicallyproficient/pseuds/technicallyproficient
Summary: Each morning she is tasked to play the part of mother and father.
Relationships: Alec Hardy & Ellie Miller, Alec Hardy/Ellie Miller
Comments: 23
Kudos: 162





	self-portrait against red wallpaper

"Obviously. I hope it's love. I'm trying really hard  
to make it love. I said no more severity. I said it severely  
and slept through all my appointments. I clawed  
my way into the light but the light is just as scary."

\-- Richard Siken, "Self-Portrait Against Red Wallpaper"

* * *

Each morning she wakes to the soft chirping of her alarm. She fumbles around, silencing it, and then rolls over into the empty space beside her. She is still getting used to the emptiness, the cool sheets a startling reminder of her new life, and the unbearable loneliness of the early morning hours. 

She allows herself a few deep, cleansing breaths and then she rises, changing quickly and seeking out her anti-depressants. 

Downstairs she sets out bowls and makes toast, breathing in the warmth of her tea. The boys will be up soon, expecting breakfast and transportation, demanding her undivided attention. The biggest challenge of each new day, Ellie thinks, is the first two hours. To wake up alone and construct, out of nothing, enough cheer, and happiness, and loveliness for two people.

Every morning she is tasked to play the part of mother and father.

***

It was hard to believe, at first, that the world would resume after Joe's arrest. She would open her eyes some mornings half-expecting death, a nuclear winter of some sort. It seemed unreasonable to her that the sun should continue to rise, that the post should continue to be delivered. 

How was any of it meant to go on when her two darling boys had lost their father? When the only man she had ever loved had not loved her, not really, but instead an eleven year old boy. It seems impossible to start again. 

As a little girl she had held her grudges close to her, tucked right beneath the belt. _Heaven help anyone who wrongs Eleanor_ , her mother used to say. _She's not quick to forgive and forget, that one._ And she wasn't, either. 

Ellie can still remember the anger she felt at Lucy, all those years ago, the night she wrecked Ellie's car after her first real bender. The months she spent not talking to her mother and father after they took Lucy in, again and again. All those hours lost, and god, how she _misses_ her mother, her stubborn English sensibility. What she wouldn't give, some days, just to talk to her again.

She does not dwell on such things now. 

* * *

At work Hardy is attentive and overbearing. He brings her endless cups of tea, bags of crisps from the office machine. They crack the Trish Winterman case wide open and he follows her home for weeks. Calls to check in at night under the guise of paperwork questions, mere formalities. She knows better.

In her worst moments his careful consideration grates on her, makes her snappish. She hates the look of pity in his eyes, resents that her total misfortune has turned his gruff and bluster into something like tenderness. 

***

After a particularly rough day, Hardy brings her dinner. 

They chase false leads all day at work, filter through mind-numbing CCTV. A robbery with two unreliable witnesses and no real leads, plus an angsty Tom, leaves her rough at the edges. Itching to quarrel with someone.

She sits at her desk throughout the afternoon, feeling her irritation grow by the minute. A few well-intended quips set her off and she ends up telling Brian to fuck off, stalking out to the carpark thirty minutes earlier than usual. 

All things considered, Ellie should have known she would see him tonight. She hadn't missed the look in his eye as she left the office, his carefully trained gaze following her out the door. 

The boys, of course, are thrilled at the interruption. His decidedly male presence calms them, his lanky limbs and boyish masculinity reminiscent of earlier memories. He takes up space, fills the empty seat at the dinner table. Plus, he's brought food, a cherished commodity in the Miller home.

The way Tom and Fred shovel down his spaghetti as if she has not fed them in weeks only serves to make her more irritable. She endures polite conversation, listens to Tom prattle on about football to a captivated Hardy while taking long swallows of wine. 

For a second it's almost enough to make her lose herself. The familiarity threatens to choke her, cut off her airways. She slams her fork down, grabbing her glass of wine and storms off into the kitchen.  
  
Tom and Fred peer nervously Hardy, scared by her outburst.

"Tom, why don't you take Fred upstairs? I'll help your mum clean up down here." He tries for as soothing of a voice as he can manage. Truthfully, he's surprised they made it through dinner mostly unscathed. 

He had been expecting this. 

At Tom's nod he saunters into the kitchen, grabbing empty plates and utensils. Bracing himself for impact. 

She's at the counter, filling up the sink with soapy water. 

"Here, why don't you let me handle those," he offers. "You should relax. It's been a long day."

She scoffs at him, turning off the water. "Fine." 

He moves carefully past her, setting the plates by the sink and turning the water back on. "Do you want to uh... did you want to talk about it?"

She braces herself against the counter, trying to tamper down her anger. "Talk about what, Hardy? The fact that my husband was a paedophile and a murderer? Or, how about the fact that I can't walk down the high street without somebody pointing at me?" She slams her wine glass down on the counter, turning to face him. "Better yet, why don't you tell me why _you_ came tonight. Let's talk about _that_."

Hardy avoids her gaze, content to rinse the plates and let her vent a little.

"I mean, what are you even doing here, anyway? For three years I've listened to you bitch and moan about this place, this bloody small town you couldn't wait to get out of. And now... what? Suddenly there's something keeping you here?"

He continues the washing up, trying to breathe through the sharp twinge he feels in his chest. She's not wrong, of course. About any of it. He had hated this place, almost from the moment he set foot in it. But he has cared for her, has loved her, for almost that same amount of time. To leave her after Pippa was agony, but he needed to mend fences with Daisy, to give his heart time to adjust. He came crawling back to her the second he could, and it pains him that she doesn't see that. Or, that she does, and it means nothing to her anyway. 

At his silence, his seeming indifference, she feels her anger bubbling over. Hot and ropey in her stomach. 

"Well, guess what? I'm not some cause you can dedicate yourself to, Hardy." She edges closer to him, her body a mere inches from his. "You can't carry my fucking picture around in your wallet."

He is silent for a moment, exhaling loudly through his mouth, calming himself down. He refuses to scream at her, to shout. But god, it pisses him off that she has so blatantly mistook his intentions. That she could see _pity_ instead of the overwhelming love and adoration he has for her. He pulls his soapy hands out of the sink, aggressively drying them off. 

"Christ, you are the most daft-- the most stubborn woman I've ever met." He throws the towel onto the kitchen counter, moving closer to her. Invading her space. He's so close she can see the freckles on the bridge of his nose, the tiny flecks of grey at the edges of his beard. "Do you really think I'd _be_ here if all I felt for you was pity?"

He can see tears start to form in her eyes, the water blurring her vision. "But with Pippa--"

"I don't pity you," he interrupts. "I _love_ you." He watches a single tear make its way down her cheek, leaving a wet trail along face, her pretty bone structure. "That's why I'm here, Miller."

Hardy can see the realization in her eyes, the guilt washing over her. It softens him, sucks all the anger out. 

"Why don't you go sit down," he suggests. "I'll finish these up."

She nods and turns away from him, making her way to the couch. He can't bear to watch her walk away. 

***

He finishes the dishes and wipes down her counters, putting everything back in its set place. Then he pours her another glass of wine, takes a deep breath, and goes to find her. 

She's sitting in exactly the same place she has been, staring out at nothing. He can tell she's been crying. 

"Brought you another glass," he says. "Figured you might need it."

A few more tears run down her cheeks as she takes the glass from him, scooting over so he can take a seat. 

"I'm just knackered, Hardy." She turns away from him, swiping at the moisture collecting under her eyes. "It was so much easier, with-- with him here, and I hate that I'm even thinking that, but it _was_. I drive them to school and to nursery, and I try so hard to be present, y'know? To-- to make up for his absence, but I can't. I get to the end of the day and I'm so empty, I've just got nothing left for them."

She is crying in earnest now, tears rapidly streaming down her face. It kills him to see her like this, to know that -- to her -- he'll forever be entangled in the greatest tragedy of her life. 

"Worst part is, I'm _failing_ them. You should see the way Tom looks at me some days, god, he _hates_ me." She lets out a coughing sob. 

Hardy wraps his arm around her, pulling her into his chest, rubbing soothing circles into her back. He wishes he could take the pain away from her, that the tears leaking steadily into his jumper could transfer it all to him. Let him absorb her grief. He'd do it, and gladly, too. 

"You aren't failing them, Ellie." 

She toys with the fabric of his shirt, willing herself to calm down. 

"Tom was the happiest I'd ever seen him, tonight, here with you. And he doesn't even like you," she says, a watery laugh again his chest. "Clearly I'm failing them somehow."

He chuckles along with her, pressing a soft, reassuring kiss to her hair. Smoothing down the loose, tangled strands.   
  
"Easy now, Miller. I've come a long way with the lad. Think he quite likes me now."

She pulls back to fix him with an incredulous look, as he knew she would. He is, if nothing else, an expert at getting her to disagree with him. At distracting her with useless arguments. 

"Likes your cooking, maybe." 

He nods his assent, smiling a little. "And our chats about football."

"Hardy, you know bugger all about football," she scoffs, playfully swatting at his shoulder. "And we _all_ know it." 

The laughter bubbles out of them both, a happy and bright sound in her otherwise empty sitting room. 

Ellie can't help but note the contrast. Years ago, her and Joe had him over out of an obligation of sorts, some polite notion their mothers had engrained into them. They'd laughed at him, then, at his bumbling awkwardness. The _gifts_ he'd brought, his inability to make small talk. The meanness of it turns her stomach. 

She thinks now that he must have always been kind, in his own strange, Scottish way. And maybe a bit in love with her, too. She'd just not known how to let him. Maybe she never has. 

The care he'd taken with her when she found out about Joe, the soothing way he'd rubbed her back as she retched on the interrogation room floor. And all the tenderness since, the way it simply flowed out of him. She had been struck, years ago, by the gentle way he'd pushed Fred's pram. But she'd buried it, stuffed it down beneath everything else. 

God, how she'd misunderstood it all. How she'd fucked it all up. 

"I'm sorry," she mumbles, breaking the silence. "About earlier. I shouldn't have... said those things about you."

His expression changes to one of complete tenderness as he reaches out to her, cupping her jaw, letting his thumb trace her delicate bone structure. 

"You've nothing to apologize for." 

She smiles, and he can feel the movement on her skin, the heat of her blush warming his palm.

"Do you think it would be alright if I just --" she motions awkwardly to his lap, scrunching her nose at the gesture. 

"Of course. Whatever you need."

She grabs a pillow from the back of the couch and places it gingerly on his lap, stretching out and laying her head upon it. 

"I've just been so exhausted lately. I feel like I can't keep up," she sighs, yawning into the pillow. 

"I know you have," he says. "I know."

The feel of his fingers combing through her hair, the light scratching at her scalp, lulls her to sleep. 

She does not dream.

* * *

They don't talk about it. 

She wakes that morning with a stiff neck, embarrassment sloshing around inside her. She squeezes his thigh in thanks and then gets up, quietly ushering him out the door before her boys wake.

And then, improbably, life continues on. Like everything else personal or intimate, their little shared moment is sublimated into productivity. To catching bad guys and petty tractor thieves. Some days she thinks she's imagined it. But then, his hand will linger at the small of her back, or he'll walk her out to the carpark even though he has no plans to leave the office anytime soon.

She sees her therapist once a week and talks about _small victories_ , a saying she loathes more than anything. But it convinces her therapist that she is trying, that she can recognize the importance of being here, alive and more or less whole. 

The world has not been kind to her lately, but she knows she's lucky. She's seen enough hurt, enough cold, dead bodies to know that the alternative is much worse.

She knows she's lucky. 

***

A few weeks later, late one Friday evening, he shows up at her doorstep. The boys have been in bed for hours, and she'd just polished off her second glass of wine. 

She feels the cabernet sloshing around in her stomach when she sees him, handsome and wind-blown, giving her his best puppy dog eyes. 

"Can I come in?" he asks, motioning past her. 

She holds the door open a little further, following him inside. 

"So what are you--"

"I wanted to apologize--" 

They each stop, laughing at the interruption. He stares at her, and then continues. "I wanted to apologize. I came over to uh, to say sorry for... for making things weird. Between us, I mean." 

"You don't have to--"

"I do," he waves her off. "I want to. What I said to you a few weeks ago, I wasn't ever planning on... telling you that."

"Telling me you love me, you mean," she says. Ellie runs her fingers through her hair, trying to ignore the heat that crawls up the back of her neck as she says it. The mere mention of love _does_ something to her. It's much too soon, she knows, to even be contemplating it. And with him, no less. 

The voice inside her head tells her she doesn't deserve it, that she's tainted somehow, black rot on the inside. 

"Yeah." He winces at her directness, the word _love_ making his cheeks turn pink. "I know it's too soon for... that." 

Something in the way that he's looking at her, that he had dragged himself over here at half eleven on a Friday night just to apologize, endears her to him. He's right, of course. It's much too soon for any of that. But part of her, that same part that's admiring two days of stubble growth and the long clean lines of him beneath his t-shirt, thinks that maybe she doesn't quite care. 

She'd gotten no real warning, for any of it. No red flags or flashing lights. In the past few years everything in her life has been something that has _happene_ d to her, death and divorce and tragedy. Maybe it's time to exercise a little autonomy, make a few decisions. Make her own small victories. 

"You're right," she says, taking a steadying breath. Here goes nothing. "It's too soon for me to hear that. But I was hoping that maybe you'd show me anyways."

Ellie winds her arms around his neck, pressing her body firmly against his own. 

Her kiss activates something in him, it's as if he's suddenly given himself permission to respond. He kisses her back with equal ferocity, sliding his hands from her hips down to her thighs, lifting her up against him. 

She moans into his mouth at the contact, and it's as if she's waking up, too. She's aware of her body for the first time in months, the warmth in her pelvis, the tingle at the base of her spine. 

He pulls away from her, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses down her neck, sucking at her collar bone. She gasps, trying to regain her composure. 

"The kids-- we have to be..." His hand grasps her breast through her shirt, this thumb brushing against her nipple. She moans again, letting her head fall back.

Ellie can feel his erection pressing up against her, his wet mouth still focusing on her neck. She takes a few deep breaths and tries again. "Hardy, we have to be quiet. The kids are asleep."

When we pulls away from her again, his mouth is swollen, pupils dilated. He sets her down, trying to hide his embarrassment. "Sorry. I got um, carried away, I guess."

She smiles at him, hoping she can convey all the affection she's feeling towards him now. 

"Don't be," she says, grasping his hand. "Just take me to bed." 

She leads him upstairs. 

* * *

The next morning she wakes and it's early, still. The room still dark. The sky has just begun to lighten, the sun preparing for its long rise over the horizon. 

She rolls over into the warm, masculine body next to her, letting her fingers trace against the smooth skin of his back. He's completely dead to the world, worn out from a night of love-making. Last night he'd fucked her gently, happily, making eye contact the whole time. It was intimate, startlingly so, and when it got to be unbearable she shut eyes, blocking it out. When she came she bit the tendons in his neck, making her own mark. She doesn't want to be passive anymore. 

Quietly, she slips out of bed, padding into the bathroom. She takes her anti-depressants, like always, and gets dressed. This time she lets herself look in the mirror. Her hair is a bit wild, her neck pink from his stubble. But she looks sated, she thinks. Maybe even happy. 

It's a Saturday; it'll be hours now before her boys wake, before the rest of the world opens its eyes. 

She does not worry about leaving Hardy alone in her bed, doesn't think twice about grabbing the car keys and heading outside, closing the door with a quiet _click_.

Ellie drives to the sea. In her car she watches the slow descent of the sun, its rays brightening the world before her, warming her skin.

She parks off the side of the road and grabs her coat, moving to stand close to the edge, smiling at the breaking waves. The salt and brine smell soothes her, this place, the only home she's ever known. 

It's quiet all around, the only sounds the cawing of the birds, the waves slapping against the shore. She feels alone out here, as if she'd gone to bed and the whole world had died, leaving nothing but her and the sea. 

It could be enough, moments like this. She knows, deep down, that it isn't over yet. That the boys will wake up this morning and she'll resume her old roles, stretching herself thin and taut, trying to take up enough space for two.

But she could build a life in the moments between, she could gather her strength in the morning if her bed wasn't always empty. If she got to see the sun rise every once in a while. 

It could be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This story, as you by now know, has nothing to do with my other work in progress. Sorry about that. I do have plans to finish it, but I wanted to get this story out of me first. I'm not a writer, and I have no formal training. I don't think I would have ever had the courage to venture beyond the realm of university research papers had I not watched Broadchurch this year. I'm thrilled that I did.
> 
> All this to say: thank you for all of your kind words this year. I have loved writing and reading about these two, and sharing this weird and wonderful experience with you all. I hope that your new year is safe, and full of love and kindness. 
> 
> xx technicallyproficient


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